Nabors, 82, flew with Cadwallader, 64, a macadamia nut farmer from Hawaii and his partner of 38 years, to Seattle (where gay marriage is legal, as in the rest of Washington State) for a ceremony presided over by a friend of Nabors who serves as a judge.

Nabors and Cadwallader, whom the actor calls his “best friend,” own a macadamia farm that is part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

There is an urban legend which maintains that Nabors and actor Rock Hudson were married in the 1970s, but the two were never more than friends.

As Hudson himself recounted during a 1985 interview (the actor died in October of that year, the first major celebrity to die from an AIDS-related illness), the Nabors marriage myth originated with a group of Huntington Beach, California gays whose annual parties included joke invitations.

“There appears to be a couple of elderly or middle-aged homosexuals who live in Huntingdon Beach, which is just down the coast from Los Angeles, who every year give a party, a big party, 500 people or so,” Hudson explained.

“And they invite everyone they know. It’s an engraved invitation, and to make it amusing they will say ‘You’re cordially invited to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in Huntingdon Beach.’ One year the invitation was, ‘You are cordially invited to the wedding reception of Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors,’” with the punch line being that Hudson would take the surname of Nabors’ character, Gomer Pyle, becoming “Rock Pyle.”

Those who didn’t get the joke spread the rumor.

“It went all over the country,” Hudson said, even though Nabors was datingCadwallader, whom he married last month.

Both Nabors and Hudson were closeted at that time, and because of the fear they might be outed, never spoke to the other again.

After accepting the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, Foster opened her remarks by joking, “I’m just going to put it out there, loud and proud. I am, uh—single.”

The Academy Award-winning actress (“The Accused,” “Silence of the Lambs”) referred to her relationship with her former partner of 20 years, Cydney Bernard, with whom she has two sons.

With their children in attendance, Foster, 50, said that Bernard is “my heroic co-parent, my ex-partner in love but righteous soul sister in life, my confessor, ski buddy, consiglieri, [and my] most beloved BFF of 20 years,” and added, “I am so proud of our modern family.”

“I already did my coming out 1,000 years ago, in the Stone Age,” Foster told the audience. “Those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually to everyone that knew her, everyone she actually met. But now apparently I’m told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance, and a primetime reality show.”

She continued, “You guys might be surprised but I am not ‘Honey Boo Boo Child.’ No, I’m sorry. That’s just not me. It never was and it never will be. But please don’t cry, because my reality show would so boring.”

Foster, whose breakout role was as a teenage prostitute in the 1976 film “Taxi Driver,” told the attendees about living her life in a fish bowl. “If you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe then you, too, might value privacy above all else. Privacy. I have given everything up there from the time that I was three years old: that’s reality show enough, don’t you think?”

About her plans for the future, the actress offered, “This feels like the end of one era and the beginning of something else.”

According to reports, the accuser, who is now 23, claims that he and Clash engaged in sexual activity seven years ago, when he was 16 years old and Clash was 45. Clash has admitted that he and the person had sexual relations, but only after he reached the age of consent.

“I had a relationship with [the accuser],” acknowledged Clash, who added that, “It was between two consenting adults, and I am deeply saddened that he is trying to make it into something it was not.”

The producers admitted, “In June of this year, Sesame Workshop received a communication from a young man who alleged that he had a relationship with Kevin Clash beginning when he was 16-years-old.” They insisted that, “This was a personal relationship, unrelated to the workplace. We took the allegation very seriously and took immediate action.”

“Elmo is bigger than any one person and will continue to be an integral part of Sesame Street to engage, educate, and inspire children around the world,” the producers added.

“I am a gay man,” Clash said, commenting about his present difficulties. “I have never been ashamed of this or tried to hide it, but felt it was a personal and private matter.”

In the 30-second spot, which began airing on Sunday, November 25 in several U.S. markets, Freeman says that, “Freedom, justice and human dignity have always guided our journey toward a more perfect union.” Freeman, 75—who won the 2005 Academy Award for best actor (“Million Dollar Baby”)—added, “Now, across our country, we are standing together for the right of gay and lesbian Americans to marry the person they love. And with historic victories for marriage, we’ve delivered a mandate for full equality. The wind is at our back but our journey has just begun.”

The narrative is delivered over images of the Statue of Liberty and the 1963 March on Washington, as well as depicting same-sex families.

In July, Freeman told Newsweek, “I grew up in the South, but I started dancing in my twenties when I got out of the Air Force, and studying dance, you’re surrounded by gay guys all the time. You get to know them and you have to shift gears.”